The Scream

by John Skipp; Craig Spector

  Even as he thought the words, Jesse tore the headphones from her ears and slammed them against the rack that held her video monitor.

  “Dammit!” she muttered, and the profile she displayed was pale and distracted. Pete smiled winningly.

  “Are we having a problem?”

  She shot him a glacially cold glance then stormed out of her seat and up the stairs without another syllable. The sound of her door slamming carried all the way down the hall and into Pete’s face. It wasn’t a general I-want-you-to-be-aloneness; it was a bulletin, aimed right at his head. He could almost see the little picture of himself inside the circle with the slash. NO PETE-ING ZONE.

  What did I do this time? he wondered. His relationship with Jesse was a long and convoluted one, full of more than enough ups and downs to go with the ins and outs. It could be anything. It could be his criticism of her string samples in the last song. It could be her period. It could be the fact that he was ten or so behind in the Oral Sex Sweepstakes, according to estimates taken in March. Or maybe all three.

  Of course, it’s always possible that she might have an actual good reason, he realized. Maybe I did something I didn’t even know I did. The amount of dope he was smoking these days, it wouldn’t surprise him if he were to wake up one morning naked on a straw mat on top of a mountain, with a beard long enough to braid around his lotus-positioned toes.

  “This does not look good,” Pete said aloud. He flashed a glance at Bob and Bob, finding corroboration there. Hey, stupid, I wouldn’t leave my lover looking that miserable while I lie around with a magazine on my head.

  “Well,” Bob One sighed, “what are you waiting for?”

  This qualified as incentive. He made a gymnastic leap from prone to upright, put his guitar down, and shrugged.

  “Guess we’ll be breaking a little longer, after all.”

  * * *

  TWO

  “Get a load of those assholes.” Yke jabbed his thumb at the tinted glass of the window on the driver’s side. They were stuck at the light for the moment; there was nothing to do but watch. Across the median strip, on the west side of Broadway and Sixty-sixth, some fifty protesters were shouting and waving signs out front of Tower Records. It was a sight that he was getting used to.

  Jake groaned. Jerry moaned. Yke laughed and took a swig off his Amstel Light. His feet were resting on the limousine bar, all 6’4” of him luxuriously sprawled. Jerry Crane Productions was footing the bill for their afternoon wheels, as well as the postdebacle lunch uptown. Yke loved limos, and they were twice the fun when somebody else was forking over the green.

  “So they’re really camping out in front of your place?” Jerry asked from his place on the passenger side.

  “Every day and night,” Jake replied wearily. “From seven A.M. to midnight, without fail. Furniss’s got his kiddies whipped up into a tizzy, so we can count on anywhere from a dozen to a hundred of ‘em outside the gate at any given time.”

  “Have you thought about calling the cops?”

  “Yeah . . .” Jake let the word drag out lackadaisically, donning a wistful little grin. “But, see, it’s rained every day for the last week, too. . . .”

  Jerry laughed. Yke wasn’t really paying attention. He was reading the signs on the picket line and checking for cute young feminine asses. The cute asses were few, but the signs were many. He took another swig and then proceeded to read them aloud.

  “‘Jesus Saves! Rock Enslaves!’” he asserted. “‘Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll Will Damn Your Own Immortal Soul!’” He turned to his fellow passengers and improvised a nifty one on the spot. “Knock Rock! Knock Rock! Jesus Never Had a Cock!”

  “The man’s insane.” Jake laughed. Jerry groaned and rolled his eyes, as though that were the end of it. Not true. Yke was inspired now. His feet swung off the bar and hit the floor, the rest of his body in close pursuit. He had opened the sun roof and stood, poking out through the hole, before the others could so much as grab his legs.

  “KNOCK ROCK! KNOCK ROCK! JESUS NEVER HAD A COCK!” Yke screamed at the top of his considerable lungs, hand cupped around his mouth to project the sound straight at the protesters’ heads. Several of them turned and gaped.

  “FUCK YOU PEOPLE! EAT MY SOCK!” Yke elaborated, flipping them the bird with either hand.

  The light turned green. The limo started to roll. So did a small handful of the faithful, who broke away from the mob and started to follow the limo up the opposite side of the street. Evidently they had recognized him. The weed of crime bears bitter fruit.

  “THAT’S RIGHT, DIPSHITS! TAKE A WALK!” he concluded, and then they finally managed to drag him back into the car.

  “Yke, why did you have to do that?” Jerry looked suddenly dyspeptic, like someone who’d just noticed the green complexion of the hot dog he was eating.

  “I’m havin’ some fun with the doughwads, man. I think they’re fuckin’ adorable.”

  “Well, that’s really nice, Yke. Unfortunately, we’re only two blocks from the restaurant.”

  “Oh.” This was news.

  “This is really what my ulcer needs right now: a side order of screaming assholes,” Jerry continued. “Thanks, guys.”

  “Sorry.” Yke, only marginally embarrassed, turned to look out the window again. Four sign-bearing young sphincteroids were pacing them determinedly up Broadway, a textbook case of dogged pursuit. Twice that number were just starting to follow behind. One of the front-runners was an athletic little teenage fellow . . . the Great White Hope, all blond and blue . . . who looked just clever enough to have invented the legend he bore: NO ROCK STAR EVER DIED FOR YOUR SINS. If traffic didn’t pick up and let the limo gain some ground, it was a legend that stood to invalidate itself in the very near future.

  “Why don’t we just take a little detour?” Jake asked the driver directly. “Wouldn’t take five minutes.”

  “Sounds cool to me.” The driver said. He was a would-be Tom Selleck with an easy California smile that belied his New York pallor. “Mr. Crane? Take a right at the corner?”

  “Alright.” It was a sour concession. “If it’ll get them off our tails for a minute, fine.”

  “They’re history.” The driver wheeled rapidly to the right in front of a Korean cabbie who brake-slammed, grimaced and leaned heavily on his horn. It was only then that they saw the tail end of the truck poking out of Sixty-fifth Street.

  “My heart,” Jerry moaned, and he looked as if he meant it. Judging from his skin tone, that half-eaten hot dog was getting greener by the minute.

  “It’ll be okay,” Jake said. The limo was barely squeezing through the yellow light to jut out in the intersection. The front-runners were crossing Broadway, closing in. “We didn’t come here to get chewed up by these pissants.”

  Jake’s face looked passionately chill in that moment; it was easy to see the soldier behind the star. “Look at ‘em, Jerry. Soft little American kids. Their idea of pain is being denied a second helping of Count Chocula. We’re supposed to get palpitations over them?

  “Come on. At worst they’ll be a pain in the ass for the poor people who run the restaurant.”

  “I eat little fuckers like them for between-meal snacks,” Yke added, rallying to the cause.

  Jerry shrugged, unmollified, and started sickly scanning the sidewalk for gossip columnists and photographers. Jake turned to look at Yke with a shrug of his own and said, “Here come the lil’ darlin’s. Should we be nice to Jerry and not kill them?”

  Yke grinned. “Won’t be easy.”

  “He’s buying lunch.”

  “I’ll make nicey-nice.”

  “Me, too,” Jake said, and then the first protester thudded against the side of the car.

  Yke’s response was instantaneous. He unlocked and threw open the door in a second, knocking the impactor back and away. The other three front-runners were just converging; their sudden startledness was amusing as all get-out.

  “Can I help you?” Yke said, stepp
ing out and up to his full height. Jake stepped silently out behind. The tallest of the protesters was about Jake’s height, which meant that he came up to about Yke’s chin.

  Yke was pleased at the shock effect. It had always been that way for him: even back before there was an Yke Dykeburn, before the fourteen years of shameless hustling in bar bands and women’s underwear it had taken for The Slabs to make it big. Back when it was just Vinnie Spaglioni on the streets of Brooklyn Heights, it had been the same deal: little dweebs rising up in packs to smite him, falling back in droves when they realized just how large he actually was.

  It was, as always, an extreme pleasure to watch their courage fizzle as they started to back away. Up close, with their little tails suddenly between their legs, they were just homely enough to be paper-trained. He told them so.

  “Yeah, well, you can call us anything you want, mister—” the Great White Hope began.

  “Oh, really? Great!” Yke cut in.

  “—but you’re the one who’s going to Hell, not us!” the kid concluded. Yke was impressed by the teenage conviction, the firm set of his lips between those chubby little cheeks. He had balls, you had to give him that, even with his face flushed and his voice piping up toward castrato range.

  “You’re gonna burn in Hell for all eternity!” added one of his compatriots, a spotty-faced geek whose eyes bulged with the effort of the words.

  “You hang out with this guy?” Yke asked the Great White Hope incredulously.

  A crowd was starting to gather on Broadway, and traffic was nowhere close to moving. Eight more of the godly were making their way across the street and toward them. That would make it twelve to two. Twenty more, and Yke might start to worry.

  “When the Lord comes back, you’ll be sorry!” yelled the guy who first slammed into the limo. He was the one who was as tall as Jake, and he appeared to be their leader. His jet black bangs hung nearly into his eyes, and they were sweated to his forehead as he proclaimed: “‘For none shall enter the I Kingdom except through Me—’”

  “Who, you?” Jake cut in, stepping to Yke’s side and immediately in front of Fearless Leader.

  “No, Jesus!”

  “So what have you got to do with it?” Jake demanded.

  This was a trick question, evidently. By the time the kid thought of a comeback, the limo’s horn began to sound and traffic began to move.

  “Oh, well,” Yke said. “Better luck next life.”

  “So what is it,” Jake asked, a bite-sized forkful of sword-fish steak dangling inches from his lips, “that you don’t understand?”

  “I’m thinking,” Jerry said as he idly poked at his spinach salad. The wrinkled green seemed to leave him uninspired. “I just want to phrase this properly.”

  “Man, I got some suggestions for that, if you wanna hear ‘em,” Yke added, a mouthful of filet mignon barely impeding the syllables.

  “Look,” Jake persisted. “We’re here to promote Rock Aid, right?”

  Jerry nodded sourly.

  “And the whole function of the gig is to kick their propaganda machine in the nuts, yes?”

  “Wait a minute,” Jerry cut in. “I don’t want you putting words in my mouth, okay? As far as I’m concerned, that is not the function of Rock Aid.”

  “Then what is?” Jake’s chunk of swordfish hovered rapierlike in the air between.

  “Rock Aid,” Jerry said very deliberately, his own fork brandished, “is a fund-raising enterprise, to provide assistance for bands who are currently under legal assault, and to subsidize the prorock lobby in Washington.”

  “It’s also a consciousness-raising enterprise, am I right?”

  Jerry rolled his eyes. This was where the real problem lay, alrightee.

  “You’ve called it a consciousness-raising program from the beginning, Jerry.”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Well, so let’s raise some fucking consciousness, dammit!” Jake slammed his spare fist on the table for emphasis. “Let’s talk about where the problem really is! We’re not just talking about a series of random attacks on rock ’n roll; we’re talking about a calculated assault on our freedom as American citizens, our just plain freedom as human beings!”

  “Now, listen—”

  “No, you listen!” Jake was not about to be stopped. “All my life I’ve been hearing these people piss and moan. I’ve listened to them tell me what was right and what was wrong, what I could think about and what I couldn’t, which pieces of my anatomy were okay and which ones were filthy in the sight of God. And I had it pounded into me to the point where I started doing some thinking of my own.”

  “Amen,” Yke contributed, through another mouthful of meat.

  “And what I came up with,” Jake continued, “was that I do believe in certain things. I do believe in a universal intelligence that underlies all things. I believe in infinity. I believe in love. I even believe in good and evil.

  “But I don’t believe those fuckers for a goddamn second, and you know why? Because they’re weasels. They’re scared to death of their own bodies, they’re scared to death of their own desires, they’re absolutely terrified by the prospect of thinking for themselves; and so they’ve copped themselves a nice little belief system that they can hide behind when things get rough.

  “And they lie, man! They lie their asses off! I mean, look at some of the statistics these guys trotted out today: Three point five million disappearing children,’ they say, when the FBI only chalked up a grand total of sixty-eight for the whole year! Come on. Is this garbage or what?”

  Jerry had gone back to toying with his spinach salad. His head shook sadly back and forth, awaiting its chance to respond.

  “I know you’ve heard all this before, Jerry. I’m sorry to have to bring it up again. It’s just that I’ve been waiting my whole life for the chance to nail these suckers right where they live. And now it’s not only a joy unbounded, it’s also critically important. We have to raise hell, man! It’s our sacred duty. It’s a moral imperative.”

  “See, that’s the whole problem,” Jerry said. “You’re right. It is important. And that’s why it’s so important that we don’t come off like foaming maniacs—”

  “RARRRR!” Yke snarled, leaning suddenly forward and dipping his chin into the full head of his beer mug. He came up looking rabid. “RARRRR!” he repeated emphatically, suds oozing down his chin.

  Jerry looked pained and embarrassed. So did Jake, but at least he was enjoying it.

  “Oh, Jerry,” Yke said, shaking his head sadly as he wiped off his froth. “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry. You’re missing the point, man. Of course rock is flamboyant, and excessive, and insane. People would be real disappointed in us if we weren’t crazy, you know it?

  “And besides, that’s the one thing we really have in common with these bozos. I mean, the only things weirder than rock ’n rollers are TV evangelists and professional wrestling. We’re the only ones qualified to fight ‘em, ‘cause we’re the only ones whacked enough to get in the ring in the first place.”

  “And we are being good,” Jake added. “Not once on the whole show did Yke or I call Furniss a larcenous sheep-fucker, which is exactly what he is. I think that shows admirable restraint.”

  Even Jerry laughed, albeit ruefully. Jake finally took the bite of long-suffering swordfish, as if to rest his case.

  “Yes, I know,” Jerry said. “And don’t think I don’t appreciate it.” He leaned forward, speaking softly, confessionally. “I’m sort of a lunatic myself, you know; I have to be, working with nuts like you.”

  “Thanks,” Yke said. “You’re a sweetheart. I love you.”

  “No, honest to God,” Jerry continued, undaunted. “There’s a part of me that cheers every time you tear into ‘em. Don’t get me wrong. The old radical in me loves it. Sometimes I hate him for it, but it’s true.

  “The problem is, guys, that the old radical isn’t the one who’s producing and promoting this gig. He’s not the one who’s
responsible for the seventeen million dollars involved. The producer and promoter is the guy who’s turning green in front of you, while his brand-new ulcer gnaws away at his old one and his heart wonders if now might not just be the time to seize up forever. He’s not having as much fun as the old radical; but then, he can’t afford to. You see what I’m saying?”

  Jake and Yke sighed in unison. “What, exactly,” Jake asked, “are you afraid of?”

  “To tell you the truth?”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Violence,” Jerry said, the word blunt and emphatic. “I’m afraid that if enough people get pissed off enough, we won’t have a concert: we’ll have a battleground.”

  “Oh, man,” Yke cut in, mildly exasperated. “What’re you talkin’ about? The heavenly host, goose-steppin’ down the aisles? That ain’t gonna happen.” He looked at Jake for confirmation of that simple fact, not entirely sure that he got it. Jake looked real sober all of a sudden, too.

  “I don’t know,” Jerry said. “All I know is that I’ve been having very bad dreams lately, and they all involve this hideous monster called Your Liability Insurance Has Just Been Revoked. It makes King Kong look like Mr. Rogers, I’ll tell you that. And it makes Rock Aid look like Custer’s last stand.”

  “Who,” Jake said, “are you afraid of? Exactly?”

  Jerry said nothing.

  “Who are you more afraid of: the born-agains or the rockers?”

  Jerry gave it a minute of thought.

  “Yes,” he said at last, “that is the question.”

  “Hey, Jerr,” Yke said. “Don’t be such a wimp. We’re not the ones you ought to be worried about.”

  “How so?” Jerry cocked an eyebrow as he spoke.

  “What I mean is, the worst thing you can accuse ol’ Jake here of is being a smartass and standin’ up for truth, justice, and the American way. The worst thing you can accuse me of is pointing out that authority sucks.”